1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk player for performing reproduction, recording or erasure for an optical disk such as DVD/RW and magnetic disk (hereinafter referred to as “disk”).
2. Description of the Related Art
An example of the disk player is shown in FIG. 12. In this disk player, a tray 2 is housed within a casing 1 so that it is movable forward/backward in a direction of arrow a–b. The front panel 1a of the casing 1 is provided with a pressing button 3 for loading, a through-hole 4 for an emergency mechanism, an operating display lamp 5, a volume knob 6 and a plug 7 for a headphone.
In the above configuration, starting from the state where the tray 2 has been housed within the casing 1, by pressing the pressing button 3, the tray 2 is moved forward “a” (see phantom line in FIG. 12) in response to an unloading signal, and after a disk D (FIG. 3) has been placed on the tray 2, by pressing the pressing button 3, the tray 2 is moved backward “b” in response to a loading signal.
In the above configuration, if the tray 2 cannot be moved forward “a” even when the pressing button 3 has been pressed, a thin rod is passed through the through-hole 4 to manipulate an emergency mechanism 9 (described later). Thereby, the tray 2 may be slightly moved forward “a” and the front end of the tray 2 may be pulled out by a finger.
Conventionally, an exemplary technique of the emergency mechanism has been disclosed in JP-A-2002-100096. In this technique, as shown in FIGS. 13 to 15, the emergency mechanism 9 is incorporated in a tray driving device 10 for moving the tray forward “a” and backward “b”.
The tray driving device 10 includes a gear mechanism 13 provided on the front portion of the casing 1 oppositely to a rack 12 (see FIG. 3) provided on the lower surface of the tray 2, a slide bar 14 which is slidably arranged on the front portion of the casing 1 along a transverse direction “c”–“d” orthogonal to the forward/backward movement direction “a”–“b”, a guide pin 16 projecting from the slide bar 14 and fitting in a guide groove 15 formed in the lower surface of the tray 2 and a tooth portion 14a formed integrally to the slide bar 14 so as to be engageable/disengageable with the gear mechanism 13.
The emergency mechanism 9 has a touching plate 18 formed integrally to the lower surface of a gear constituting the gear mechanism 13, and a guiding plate 19 is arranged to extend from the vicinity of a through-hole 4 to a thin rod contact plane 18a of the touching plate 18.
In the above configuration, the thin rod 8 passed through the through-hole 4 is guided by the guiding plate so that the tip of the thin rod 8 is brought into contact with the thin-rod contact plane of the touching plate 18, and by pushing in the touching plate, the slide bar 14 is slid in a direction of arrow “d”, through the gear mechanism 13 and the tooth portion. Further, by pressing the slanted inner face 15a of the guide groove 15 using the guide pin 16, the tray is slightly moved forward “a” (see phantom line in FIGS. 13 and 14). The front end of the tray 2 is pulled out by a finger.
In the above configuration, as shown in FIG. 15, the touching plate 18 is incorporated into the gear mechanism 13. The distance L from the thin-rod contact face 18a of the touching plate 18 to the through-hole 4 is relatively large whereas the longitudinal width h of the thin-rod contact face is small (e.g. 1–2 mm). In this case, in order that the tip of the thin rod 8 passed into the through-hole 4 does not come off from the thin rod contact face 18a, the guide plate 19 is employed. This increases the number of components by the degree of using the guiding plate 19, thereby increasing the production cost.
It can be proposed to increase the longitudinal width of the thin rod contact face 18a to about 6 mm. However, this increases the height of the gear mechanism 13, which incorporates the touching plate 18, by the degree of increasing the longitudinal width h, thereby upsizing the casing 1. As a result, actually, the longitudinal width h of the thin rod contact face 18a cannot be increased.
The thin rod 8 is generally formed of a stationary clip made of soft iron and extended linearly so that it is likely to be bent.
Further, since the outer diameter e is small e.g. 8 mm, the tip of the thin rod 8 may enter the gap α between the touching plate 18 and the guiding plate 19 as shown in FIG. 16. These inconveniences hinder the emergency mechanism 9 from operating effectively.